DENVER -- Some of the new local standards Boulder County is proposing to impose on oil and gas development "seem a little vague," the director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission told county commissioners on Tuesday afternoon.

During a meeting among state and Boulder County officials in Gov. John Hickenlooper's office, COGCC director Matt Lepore cited, for example, a draft county regulation that talks about "significant degradation" of pre-drilling conditions but that doesn't clearly define what's meant by that phrase.

Lepore questioned the county commissioners about what might happen if Boulder County denied an oil and gas company's drilling permit application, for "what strikes us as a vague standard," but the company qualifies for, and gets, a state permit from the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Lepore, who said he's met twice with the Boulder County staff as the still-being-developed county regulations were being crafted, said there are "some areas that conflict" with state rules.

Elsewhere in the proposed amendments to Boulder County's Land Use Code, some of the county's other proposed rules appear to be "very similar" to the state agency's own regulations, Lepore said, suggesting that they may unnecessarily duplicate the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's regulations governing oil and gas drilling and post-drilling well operations.

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Commissoners Will Toor, Cindy Domenico and Deb Gardner said after Tuesday's meeting, however, that this is the first they've been told about the state agency's criticisms that some of the language in the proposed Boulder County regulations is too vague, that other provisions might conflict with state rules, and that others needlessly duplicate existing state rules.

During the meeting, the three commissioners -- along with Elise Jones, elected this month to succeed Toor in the Board of County Commissioners' District 1 seat come January -- told Hickenlooper, Lepore and other state officials in attendance that Boulder County residents expect a measure of local land-use scrutiny and regulation when it comes to considering such activities as oil and gas exploration in unincorporated areas.

Gardner said such local control is the public's expectation and the commissioners' responsibility.

"We're responding to constituents who say what the state has in place isn't good enough," Jones said.

The commissioners also talked about the political climate in which the county is writing an update to its 20-year-old oil and gas regulations and in which the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is considering passing new rules of its own about groundwater testing and monitoring and wells' setbacks from structures.

Last week, Toor said Longmont's voter-enacted ban on the use of hydraulic fracturing as a drilling technique inside the city limits was unlikely to be upheld in court, and that a similar ban on fracking in unincorporated Boulder County -- something many residents have urged the commissioners to impose -- probably would not be upheld.

But Toor said during Tuesday's meeting with Hickenlooper that a fracking prohibition such as Longmont's probably also would pass in a similar election anywhere in Boulder County where drilling might occur.

State Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, who sat in on Boulder County officials' Tuesday meeting with Hickenlooper, told other attendees that the Longmont vote "was not a knee-jerk reaction." He said Longmont residents who supported the fracking ban amendment to the city charter were saying that "we're not being heard" by the state.

Two of Boulder County's other state lawmakers, Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Gunbarrel, and Rep. Matt Jones, D-Louisville, met with members of Hickenlooper's staff just before the governor's meeting with county officials.

Jones, who won election on Nov. 6 to an eastern Boulder County state Senate seat, said he and Hullinghorst emphasized that rules relating to oil and gas drilling, whether at the state or local level, need to be "robust enough to meet our needs" to protect the public's health and safety.

Hickenlooper said at one point that he'd be happy to have "a broader meeting in Boulder County" about issues related to regulating oil and gas exploration.

At the start of Tuesday's meeting with Boulder County officials, Alan Salazar, manager of Hickenlooper's Office of Policy and Research, said the get-together was partly "an effort to avoid a lawsuit" over any regulations that Boulder County might adopt.

While no lawsuits have yet been filed against Longmont over the voter-approved fracking ban, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission last summer filed a lawsuit against the city over a City Council-adopted ordinance restricting oil and gas drilling in residential areas.

Hickenlooper said he thought that "there is an opportunity there" to find a settlement with Longmont over that lawsuit.

Boulder County resident Diana Caile, one of several anti-fracking activists observing Tuesday's meeting, expressed frustration at both state and county officials afterward.

"I am very disappointed in our elected officials for not taking a stronger stand to protect the people of Boulder County," said Caile, an organizer of the Colorado chapter of the Mothers Project.

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